TEACHER'S NOTES

ESL / EFL RESOURCES You said

Activity Type Introduction

Miming and speaking This enjoyable activity can be used to introduce reported speech
activity, pairwork to elementary students and practice imperatives. In the activity,
students play a miming game where they guess what their
classmates were told to do using reported speech.
Language Focus
Reported speech Procedure

Imperatives Demonstrate the activity by inviting students to come to the front

of the class one at a time and whispering a command in their ear,
e.g. close the door, dont turn off the radio, etc.
Aim
Students then mime the command to the class. If the command
To guess what your is negative, the students make an X by crossing their arms before
classmates were told to they do the mime.
do using reported speech.
The class then guesses what you told each student to do using
reported speech, e.g. 'You said to close the door'. 'You said not to
Preparation turn off the radio', etc'.
Make one copy of the Explain that the students are going to play a similar game in
cards for each group of groups.
four and cut as indicated.
Divide the class into groups of four. Split each group into two
competing pairs. If possible, have each pair consist of a male and
Level female to help the students practice 'He said...' and 'She said'.
Elementary
Give each group a set of cards. Ask the students to shuffle the
cards and place them face down in a pile on the desk.
Time Pairs take it in turns to play. One student picks up a card and
25 minutes whispers the command on the card to their partner.

Their partner mimes the command to the other pair of students.

If the command is negative, the student makes an X by crossing
their arms before they begin the mime.

The other pair of students watch the mime and try to guess what the
student told their partner to do. The pair then uses reported speech
to say what they think the command was, e.g. 'He/she said to close
the door'.

The pair has one minute to guess what the student told their
partner to do. If they manage to do this and make a suitable
sentence with reported speech, they score a point.

The pairs then swap roles and the process is repeated. Students
play until there are no more cards left. The pair with the most
points at the end of the game wins.

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 REPORTED SPEECH

ESL / EFL RESOURCES You said

turn off the music come in and sit down

make me a cup of tea turn on the light

dont answer the phone wash the dishes

don't come in pick up your bag

open the window do your homework

take the dog for a walk don't speak English

make me breakfast don't play the piano

clean the house don't drive fast

dont look out the window listen to me

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